Cooking for Artists…The Team From Healing Harvest

Chef Kaz & Chef Tommy (Karen Hutchison and Thomas Morstad)

Meals at Willow Pond have become one of the most integral components of the workshop experience, and sharing meals is as old as time for essential reasons. Resting to refuel and break bread with other artists during dedicated creative practice can only enhance a Willow Pond retreat. Guests rave about the food here, and we have our favorite caterers, Healing Harvest, to thank for that.

California native Karen Hutchison fell in love with catering at 19 years old when she worked for her first event in Lake Tahoe. That spark led her to the Culinary Institute of America in Upstate New York in 2012. She refined her skills as a chef in the vibrant New Orleans hospitality scene before returning to the West Coast in 2014.

In Los Angeles, Karen balanced high-end boutique catering with the intensity of music festival production kitchens. She has managed production catering at Lightning in a Bottle and fed installation artists at Coachella and Burning Man, all of which required her to live on-site for weeks in extreme conditions, manage logistics and hiring, and lead teams serving anywhere from 60 to 3,000 daily meals.

But these days, when Chef Karen isn't cooking all over the Central Coast, from private events to corporate lunches, you can find her here at Willow Pond. Her crew includes Tommy, Annette, Allison, and Dom, and any duo from the Healing Harvest team can hold down the fort in the most fun way. Catering is hard work but they don't skip a beat while dishing up breakfast, lunch, and dinner. By day 3, guests might discover that Tommy is fueled by a 6-pack of popsicles & pocket snacks while Kaz is buzzing on Yerba Maté and meat sticks hidden in her apron.

Our artist groups are so impressed with the delicious selection of customized menus she prepares for each event, which are designed around a survey of personal preferences. Always fresh, wholesome, hearty, locally sourced, complete with a bit of decadence, for good measure. Her creative, comforting meals of beautiful rustic cuisine are enhanced with diverse global inspiration. They result in such joy and appreciation, and if you have met Kaz, you will soon realize that her love language is caring through feeding. When artists feel cared for through thoughtfully prepared meals, it can ease openness and memory, allowing their creativity to flourish.